Chapter V

Meditations at Sunrise. — Violation of the Tombs. — Description of the Tombs. — Allegorical Figures. — Splendid Tomb. — Curious Tombs. — Lively Vale. — Unartistic Statues.

August 23.—I have described, as I can, the ancient city; but the Necropolis, which yet remains to be visited, is, in fact, still, as in old times, the glory of Cyrene. Among its thousands of monuments, many retain traces of their ancient magnificence, and some still present great beauties of detail. My descriptions, such as they are here given, were written on the spot, after repeated visits; and this morning, in no unfitting mood, I began my task. The growling camels round my tent, the bleating sheep at the fountain above, roused me earlier than usual; and I prepared to set out upon my round, while the cool air invited to exertion, and the first rays of the sun gilded the summits of the hills. To most men such bright mornings are exhilarating; and the pursuit of the red-legged partridge, with dog and gun, would seem more suitable to the hour, than a walk among the tombs. But to me they are associated with recollections too painfully in unison with my present task. Twice at this season the sun has shone for me on scenes of deepest affliction. By its morning light, I have received those heart-wounds which never heal—the loss of the well-loved parents, whose affection no love can replace; of the friend of youthful days, which can never return. Such a morning was it, this day twelve years ago, when thou, O Marcellus, wert snatched from us, in the springtide of youth, in the force of thy strength, and talent, and manly beauty. After that long, weary night, during which I had sat watching alone, by the dim lamp, each unconscious movement, when all hope was gone, and each long-drawn gasp sent a fresh pang from thy heart to mine, the morning light stole through the ill-closed shutters; and hoping without hope, I opened the window to admit fresh air to thy labouring chest. The gay sun-rays burst in upon the chamber of death, the swift waters of the Rhine danced by, refulgent in the morning splendour, and unsympathising nature seemed to awaken to gladness, whilst the tenderest ties that friendship ever formed were immaturely rent asunder. Long years have passed since that sad morning; yet have I not learned to forget, or ceased to mourn thee. No companion thou of the debauch; the friendship which survives the long parting was not formed in the haunts of dissipation. If thy wit flashed bright at the festal board—in the intimacy of the chamber, thy tender feeling elevated, as thy learning and taste instructed. Cut off in earliest youth—cruel favour of the gods!—a few friends alone knew thy worth; one, at least, still mourns, and never has replaced thee in his heart. In the wilderness of the great Babylon each turn recalls thee; and here, in the city of countless tombs, thy image rises to my memory, and accompanies my pilgrimage.

Some feelings of melancholy must be awakened in every visitor, as he follows those long lines of violated sepulchres, ranged along the sides of the hills, obtruding far into the plain below, and stretching in every direction across the table-land to the south. The simple sarcophagus and proud mausoleum now alike gape tenantless; perpetuating neither the affection of the survivors nor the merits of the dead, they are mute as to their history, their fate, and almost their names. Barbarian hands have disturbed the relics, and rifled the treasures which they once contained; the existence of such treasures must have been the incentive to, and can alone account for, the universal violation of the tombs—hatred, if profitless as well as toilsome, is seldom thus unrelenting.

The influence of the vicinity, and, at one time, the domination of Egypt, seems to have inspired the Cyreneans with the same anxious reverence for the dead which distinguished their neighbours; and they seem early to have abandoned the habit of incremation, though it is not evident that they adopted that of embalming. Few of the monuments are fitted for the reception of urns, and the very few bones which are sometimes met with, bear no marks of burning.

The northern face of the eastern hill seems to have been the first place used for sepulture; and, judging from the style, I should think that some monuments, about half a mile from the fountain, on the road to Apollonia, are among the earliest. They are large sepulchres, with façades cut in the solid rock, with porticoes, in a very early Greek, almost Egyptian, style. I am inclined to think that the sepulchres, which are entirely excavated, without any adjuncts of masonry, are of two epochs, the earliest and latest: the former, though generally rude, impressive in their monolithic vastness; the latter, in their meretriciously minute though graceful decorations, reminding me forcibly of Pompeii. Some of these one finds, in which the smoothed rock is scored with lines, to imitate masonry, like the stuccoed houses of Belgravia. To an intermediate period—that of the greatest prosperity—I ascribe the cave-tombs, faced with masonry, and the circular and temple-shaped monuments which are so frequent; while the plain sarcophagus, rising from the rock on which it was hewn, may belong to any epoch. The road to Apollonia ran along the side of the hill, at about half its elevation; and, above and below, the tombs are built in long lines, tier above tier, forming, in some places, as many as twelve terraces, connected together by flights of steps.

The disposition in each form of tomb varies but little. The sarcophagus contained, in general, room for one occupant; though I found an instance where two bodies had been deposited in the same excavation, one above the other, with a stone to separate them. The cave-sepulchres have, in general, a forecourt, excavated in the hill, presenting internally a low chamber, containing four or six plain sarcophagi, cut in the sides, and as many, or even a greater number, of similar cavities sunk in the floor. There are some which form a long, narrow gallery, on which open lateral chambers, each capable of containing two sarcophagi in length, and two or three tiers, one above the other. The interiors are, in general, left quite rough, without remaining marks of decoration: a few have been plastered and painted, and others present beautiful finishing of the stone-work inside. Those hewn in the rock, and adorned with a façade of masonry, were, in their original state, undoubtedly the most magnificent, as shown by the frequent remains of columns and statues, but they are now the least interesting. The façade has, in general, fallen away, leaving the sepulchre, with its bare wall and shapeless entrance, the ghastly spectacle of a fleshless skull. In only one case did I find such a façade still entire; it has separated from the rock, and leans slightly forward, ready to fall in the first violent rains. It seemed to me the better worth remarking, as it explains the many smooth surfaces the rock presents, as well as the decoration applied to the fountain.

Among the most interesting tombs in the northern Necropolis are three, standing together, at a place where the road, following the outline of the hill, makes a deep bend. They are monolithic, and in one, the Doric columns, which support the excavated porticoes in front of the cave, are of abnormal proportions. Beneath them, descending the abrupt hill, on the third or fourth tier—it is difficult to say which, the tombs, principally sarcophagi, being so closely grouped—is a sepulchre without any external ornament, but exhibiting on its interior walls the only frescoes of any merit I have found. On the right hand, and on either side of the doorway, the paintings are well preserved; those on the other two sides are, excepting two groups, almost obliterated by the peeling off of the plaster in some places, in others by a hard, stalactitic crust which has formed on them. The inscriptions scribbled over the ground, partly with the brush, partly scratched with a point, have bestowed a certain interest on these paintings, in which Pacho, who has not given quite a correct delineation of the paintings, thought he had discovered indications of Judaism. The inscriptions, scarcely legible, seem to consist of the names of visitors, and to the unlearned offer no interest. The whole series evidently refer to the games of the ancients; chariot-races, gladiators, wrestlers, and pugilists, occupying the two sides which are damaged. There are two wrestlers, with a third figure, who seems to be taking a flying leap over their heads, but who may be intended to be lying on the ground overcome, while the judge, with the prize-cup, or, perhaps, the oil for anointing, looks on in the corner. To the right are two figures, one of whom seems to be inviting the first, a youth, to enter a doorway to which he points; which I conjecture to be the introduction of a youth to the study of rhetoric or poetry. It is here the inscriptions begin. The action of the next two figures is indistinguishable. We next see a figure in long drapery, crowned with ivy or vine-leaves, his right hand extended, in his left a lyre. An orator, or poet, with a roll in his hand, follows next; and, after him, the same draped figure, now playing on the lyre. The next group is, unfortunately, much damaged, as its composition is remarkable. It contains eight figures, all crowned with ivy; the fourth blowing the double horn; before them goes a nude figure, bearing a square chest. Here there is a figure now headless, and again the musician playing on the lyre, surrounded by seven persons. A male figure, in a tragic masque, appears to be declaiming to a female also masqued, who is surrounded by seven other females, crowned with garlands. I could discover in these paintings no trace of Jewish origin; two of the figures still remaining, which Pacho has represented wearing mitres, are certainly tragic masques; the lofty hair on the foreheads of which may have deceived him in the obscurity. Though roughly executed, they are drawn with great breadth and freedom; in style they much resemble many of the Pompeian frescoes, to which time, or rather later, they may be assigned. On either side of the door, are an animal-fight and a hunt. On one, a bull attacked by a lion, while a tiger is preparing to spring upon his neck; above are stags, a gazelle, dogs, and a chacal. Spears are flying all about the picture. On the other side is a column supporting a vase, a man launching a greyhound, almost in the position of Gibson’s hunter, a stag, two hares, and some more dogs.

Further on in the same range, at a place where the old road, with the deep-worn ruts of the chariot wheels, is still visible, is a very large collection of sepulchral chambers, called by the Arabs Kenissich, or the Church. There are remains of a large forecourt of masonry, of which only parts of the sides are still standing; but though very spacious, exceeding in extent any other excavation in Cyrene, it contains neither inscriptions nor emblems. Nothing in it indicates that it was ever used either for the religious rites or the burial of Christians, as from its name some travellers have supposed. It must be remembered that names such as this have no origin in traditions of the country, as its present inhabitants ascribe all that they see to the Christians (the Roum); they have no idea that any race of men occupied the country before them. To this is to be ascribed their excessive jealousy of antiquarian travellers, whom they believe to come furnished with information which will enable them to remove the treasures left by their ancestors, according to Arab belief, in secret places. I should conjecture that this vast series of chambers must have been appropriated to some civic or religious corporation, as its extent is far too great to have been intended for a single family.

This line of sepulchres, with its terrace, connected by flights of steps, extends in unbroken succession for about a mile and a half, till it reaches a beautifully-wooded hill, where the tombs become rarer. Amongst the immense heaps of stones fallen from the façades of the larger, are often seen fragments of marble, and excavations have uncovered many portrait-statues in every part of the Necropolis.

Turning back to the old theatre, there is found immediately beneath it the most splendid tomb which the ruins of Cyrene present, both from its gigantic dimensions and the excellent style of its architecture. It is entirely excavated, without any additions of masonry, presenting a large portico, supported by five square pillars, which forms a stately entrance to a very large chamber, succeeded by a smaller one. The centre pillars, with the rock which they supported, have fallen, and lie in one huge mass in front of the cave. It is now the habitation of a Bedawy, who one day very pressingly invited me to enter, to see his marble boxes, the fragments of two very elegantly-carved sarcophagi. Beneath this are the arches which I have already mentioned as belonging to a temple; and in the face of the hill, still further down, are some very large tombs, now devoid of all appearance of decoration.

In whatever direction one leaves the city, the tombs extend in long lines along the principal roads, they are found cut in the rocks of the most secluded valley, or built in groups on the summit of rising grounds. Of these the most interesting, beside the northern Necropolis, are those which flank the old road leading to Baria, and the long terraces on the western side of the Wady Bil Ghadir. I did not see the former till after I had been some time in Grennah, other objects having engaged all my attention; but, even when accustomed to the variety and vastness of its northern Necropolis, this struck me with astonishment. It was a lovely summer evening when I first came upon this long street of tombs, which is called by the Arabs the Market-place (El-suk), and passed for such with one of the earliest European travellers in this country—Lemaire. The long, deep shadows, with the glowing yellow of the sinking sun, concealed the ravages of time, and gave to the scene an air of solemn mystery which impressed the imagination and the eye. At every step some picturesque group of sarcophagi, or some large mausoleum, arrested the attention, and the sun had long set before I turned homewards. I often revisited this scene, and each time with renewed enjoyment. To reach it, one leaves the city by the gate near to what is supposed to have been the market-place of later times, when the traces of the old road soon show themselves. It is flanked on the left by a rock, artificially smoothed, and covered in a long row with niches square or oblong, and about one-third of their length in depth. Some have a square hole at the bottom, about three inches deep, which, though sometimes in the centre, is more often on one side. Such niches I have met with in other places, but here they are more numerous, and in a continuous line for some distance, interrupted once or twice by the door of a sepulchre. Their object it is difficult to determine; they could not have contained urns, for they are too small, as well as too exposed, being not more than three feet above the level of the road. They might have been regarded as receptacles for exvotos, had they been placed at a greater height. In this line of tombs are some remarkable structures, peculiar, I believe, to the Cyrenaica—circles of five or six feet high, surrounding a sarcophagus of the usual form. Most of them are in a very dilapidated condition, but there is one still nearly entire. It is formed of three layers of good masonry, making a square platform, on which the sarcophagus is placed, with a circle inscribed in the square of the base, formed by a ring of stones placed endwise in juxtaposition, no cement remaining between them; their dimensions are about five feet by three.

At the end of this street of tombs, turning to the left, and riding between low hills, where excavations and remains of buildings are rare, one comes to a quarter of the Necropolis unique in its _ensemble_, but not in its individual parts. I have already mentioned the sarcophagi hewn out from the solid rock, which are found so frequently mixed with tombs of other forms; here they occur in large groups, rising one above the other, on the tops of the low hills out of which they are cut. The four sides of some of these sarcophagi stand clear of the rock, which is levelled all round; in others, only three sides or two are thus freed; many are in connected groups, three or four in a line, with no other external separation than a small space between their lids, and a narrow watercourse, to drain off the rains falling from their sloping roofs.

Continuing to make a wide circuit of the city, one comes upon the ruins of two forts, in one of which is a large cistern; thence, keeping to the left, the monuments are more scattered, but they assume larger proportions, and date, probably, from the times of the greatest prosperity. Some are circular towers on a square base, like the tomb of Cecilia Metella, near Rome; others have the form of a double cube, with roofs sloping at the sides, and terminated at the ends with triangular frontons. A partition, running the length of the building, generally separates these into two chambers, having a further division in height, so as to form two stories. The greater number of tombs in this direction present vestiges of former enrichment with statues or marble, and their sides are invariably decorated with flat pilasters. Most of these monuments are erected over excavated caves, which gives the idea of their being connected; the monument may have been added to the original cave-tomb, or the former destined for the master, and the latter for his slaves or freedmen. No part of the ruins of Cyrene offers so good a chance of profitable excavations as the tombs in this direction, but I am not sanguine in the hopes of the discovery of any objects in the highest style of art. Not a trace of an inscription is to be found on any of these monuments.

In the western valley, Wady Bil Ghadir, some of the finest tombs are found, on the side of the hill opposite to that one on which the older part of the town lay. This part is very attractive by its bold and picturesque scenery. Here is a deep ravine, forming an impregnable defence to this side of the town, the rocks on either hand towering almost perpendicularly above the narrow bed of the streamlet formed by its three fountains. Towards the higher point on one side is a small grove of most venerable cypresses (the remains, perhaps, of that planted by Battus), which crown the rock, and overshadow the tombs on the terraces below. The fig-tree, the olive, and the myrtle (here a tree twenty feet high), surround the tombs with luxuriant thickets, out of which streamlets issue, whose course far beneath is marked by thick bushes of oleanders crowned with their rosy flowers, and brambles covered at the same time with their pale blossoms, and with ripening fruit. Some of the tombs in this valley are the most elegant in their proportions, and the most carefully executed of any I have met with in this country; two or three still exhibit the polychromatic decoration of their architecture, and in a few are inscriptions, giving, indeed, only the names of the tenants without either title or date; but even these are interesting, when among them one finds a Jason, an Aristotle, and a Themistocles. The interesting pictures in fresco, representing a black female slave, which decorated the exterior of a tomb high up in one of the branches of this ravine, have been removed by M. Bourville, lately consular agent for France in Benghazi, and I hope that the intrinsic merit of the paintings, of which the engravings certainly make it difficult to judge, is such that their removal may add to our knowledge of ancient art. If not superior to those in the tomb I have described in the Northern Necropolis, their acquisition will add little to the treasures of the Louvre; their absence here is a disappointment to the lover of art. Two of the fountains show the remains of ancient sanctuaries near them, and inscriptions have been found connecting their erection with the name of a pious matron. Many statues have been dug up on the sides of the hill, the best of which have been removed by their discoverers; those that remain exhibit the worst taste in design, and the clumsiest execution; their style is that of the statues produced in the masons’ yards at Leghorn, and intended, I believe, by the artists and the purchasers, whoever they may be, as ornaments for gardens.